Genesis 13
13
1-2So Abram left Egypt and went back to the Negev, he and his wife and everything he owned, and Lot still with him. By now Abram was very rich, loaded with cattle and silver and gold.
3-4He moved on from the Negev, camping along the way, to Bethel, the place he had first set up his tent between Bethel and Ai and built his first altar. Abram prayed there to God.
5-7Lot, who was traveling with Abram, was also rich in sheep and cattle and tents. But the land couldn’t support both of them; they had too many possessions. They couldn’t both live there—quarrels broke out between Abram’s shepherds and Lot’s shepherds. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living on the land at the time.
8-9Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have fighting between us, between your shepherds and my shepherds. After all, we’re family. Look around. Isn’t there plenty of land out there? Let’s separate. If you go left, I’ll go right; if you go right, I’ll go left.”
10-11a Lot looked. He saw the whole plain of the Jordan spread out, well watered (this was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah), like God’s garden, like Egypt, and stretching all the way to Zoar. Lot took the whole plain of the Jordan. Lot set out to the east.
11b-12 That’s how they came to part company, uncle and nephew. Abram settled in Canaan; Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent near Sodom.
13The people of Sodom were evil—flagrant sinners against God.
14-17After Lot separated from him, God said to Abram, “Open your eyes, look around. Look north, south, east, and west. Everything you see, the whole land spread out before you, I will give to you and your children forever. I’ll make your descendants like dust—counting your descendants will be as impossible as counting the dust of the Earth. So—on your feet, get moving! Walk through the country, its length and breadth; I’m giving it all to you.”
18Abram moved his tent. He went and settled by the Oaks of Mamre in Hebron. There he built an altar to God.
* * *
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Berĕshith (Genesis) 13
13
1And Aḇram went up from Mitsrayim into the South, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him.
2And Aḇram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.
3And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bĕyth Ěl, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bĕyth Ěl and Ai,
4to the place of the slaughter-place which he had made there at first. And there Aḇram called on the Name of יהוה.
5Now Lot, who went with Aḇram, also had flocks and herds and tents.
6And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were great, so that they could not dwell together.
7And there was strife between the herdsmen of Aḇram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. And at that time the Kena‛anites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land.
8Then Aḇram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers.
9“Is not all the land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I go to the left.”
10And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of the Yardĕn, that it was well watered everywhere – before יהוה destroyed Seḏom and Amorah – like the garden of יהוה, like the land of Mitsrayim as you go toward Tso‛ar.
11So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Yardĕn, and Lot moved east. Thus they separated from each other,
12Aḇram dwelling in the land of Kena‛an, and Lot dwelling in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent as far as Seḏom.
13But the men of Seḏom were evil and sinned before יהוה, exceedingly so.
14And after Lot had separated from him, יהוה said to Aḇram, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward,
15for all the land which you see I shall give to you and your seed forever.
16“And I shall make your seed as the dust of the earth, so that, if a man could count the dust of the earth, then your seed also could be counted.
17“Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”
18So Aḇram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamrĕ, which are in Ḥeḇron, and built a slaughter-place there to יהוה.
Copyright© 1993 – 2015 by the Institute for Scripture Research (ISR). All rights reserved.